Bill Aitken, bogus ‘religious expert’ on Sai Baba

William ‘Bill’ Aitken

Clip from ‘The Week’ magazine – claim that Aitken is an ‘expert

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From Brian Steel’s fair and incisive review of Aitken’s book, I conclude that isolation from critical academic environments and Aitken’s path into religious enthusiam has led him away even from elementary methodology and comparative and neutral standards of research and evaluation of religions. That he attacks all critics of Sai Baba as if they were all under one umbrella, incluing Prof. Narendra Nayak (see here ) in such an ill-informed and untruthful manner as he did in ‘The Week’ also reflects very badly on his honesty and general competence.

As Aitken wrote in ‘The Week’: “Recently, Marianne Warren published her Ph.D thesis, Unravelling the Enigma, arguing that since Shirdi Baba was a Sufi, Sathya Sai’s claims to be an incarnation of him are totally misplaced. This illustrates the limitations of the intellect and how the presumptuousness of scholars blinds them to the obvious fact that the mystery of rebirth is not open to proof one way or the other. As in all religious affairs, these things are personal matters and historicity is not as important to the heart as the feeling of oneness the two Sai masters engender. When truly in love the analytical mind is in abeyance.”

Yes, his analytical mind was certainly “in abeyance” before he tried to use it critically and adopted belief plus what he wants to believe is in the driving seat. He seems proud to assert a limited intellect, but some are more limited than others, especially on the issue of whether Shirdi Sai Baba (Sufi-inspired) and Sathya Sai Baba (Hinduism promoter) represent the same teaching (hardly!) or whether it was convenient for Sathya (aka Narayana Raju) to usurp the Sai Baba name and his fame to begin to create his own following.

See also

William McKay (Bill) Aitken’s academic shortcomings

William Bill Aitken’s base attacks on serious critics

William ‘Bill’Aitken’s dishonesty in full bloom